


will there no mercy be?

by Singofsolace



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: (sort of), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drunken Confessions, F/F, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Singofsolace/pseuds/Singofsolace
Summary: After Circe reveals to Mary Wardwell that she was present for Adam’s death, Mary goes home to her cottage distraught and spiraling into a dark place. Zelda, having been told to “cook her own dinner” because her sister would be spending the evening with Dr. Cee at the carnival, replaces a meal with a bottle of whiskey before deciding to tie up some loose ends for her coven—which very much includes checking on the mortal teacher Lilith brought back to life.How will Mary react to Zelda Spellman darkening her doorstep? Will she believe what Zelda has to tell her? And even if she did believe it, where do they go from there?
Relationships: Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44





	will there no mercy be?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldstan_squeemander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldstan_squeemander/gifts).



> In this fic, CAOS actually takes place during the 1960's/70's. Hence, Mary Wardwell was born around the same time as World War I. It is canon-compliant up to a point--you'll see. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> Disclaimer: While it seems a bit silly to credit Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa as the owner of these characters and this universe, considering he himself stole/borrowed/recreated them, let's give it a go. I do not own these characters, nor the universe in which they live. They belong to Archie Comics, which sent Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa himself a cease and desist for his blatant fanfic-turned-play, "Archie's Weird Fantasy," not too long ago. Please do not sue me; I am an unemployed adjunct professor writing fanfiction purely for entertainment purposes. I have very little money, but a whole lot of love for complicated female characters. While I do not wish to be sued, I would very much enjoy being given a position as show-runner for writing some great fanfic. I eagerly await your email.
> 
> The title is borrowed from "Heaven and Hell," which was an original song written for Harlots, the television series, as far as I can tell.
> 
> CW: alcohol abuse/misuse; implied past domestic violence/non-con

Zelda Spellman was alone.

If anything needs to be understood about the events that took place that night, it is this: Zelda Spellman was completely, utterly, _unbearably_ alone.

(Well, Zelda didn’t approve of the use of the word “unbearably” outside the confines of her own mind, but nevertheless, it was true.)

Zelda hadn’t spent an evening truly alone since before Hilda was born. They’d shared a bedroom since Hilda was in diapers—which meant Zelda often did more mothering than Mrs. Spellman in the wee hours of the night. Hilda had always been a needy child, desperate for attention at every moment, and their mother had little patience for that. While Zelda pretended to be the ever-suffering older sister, expected to do more than her share of caregiving, she secretly appreciated having someone to look after. It gave her a purpose, at the very least, and if Hilda got far too used to leaving her own bed untouched, well, it wasn’t Zelda’s fault for liking the soothing sound of Hilda’s even breaths against her chest.

Zelda Spellman had never been alone—it is quite important this fact is understood.

At the Academy, all the girls slept in a circle of twin beds. Zelda never had a moment’s privacy, but she was already accustomed to living like that. Even after graduation, in all of her years spent traveling, she was never without a companion to make the journey more exciting. Not once did she fail to find someone—or many ‘someones,’ as it were—to share her bed.

Even in marriage—Zelda shuddered at the thought, and took a rather too-large swig of her whiskey—she had not been alone for long. While Faustus was beneath the Vatican, she traveled the streets of Rome in a daze, floating above her body as it bought the most hideous clothes and made small talk with mortals who looked at her with pity in their eyes.

At night, she was certainly not alone. Her duties were always made very clear. Zelda’s body performed them with great enthusiasm as her mind slipped away, but Faustus knew her body almost _too_ well, and so the separation was never quite as complete as she wished it to be.

Zelda tried to take another sip of her whiskey, but discovered, with a huff, that her glass was infuriatingly empty. Standing up from the wooden kitchen chair was more of a struggle than it ought to be, but Zelda dismissed it as a product of her waning Satanic powers, not the half-a-decanter’s-worth of whiskey that had made its way down her throat on an empty stomach.

Hilda had said she should “make her own dinner,” but what was the point? With the rest of her family at the carnival, and her students now settled into the Academy once more, she was not about to labor over a meal for one person. After a full month of the mortuary being overrun by far too many guests, Zelda thought she would enjoy some peace, quiet, and solitude.

She didn’t.

Pouring a new glass of whiskey proved to be quite the task. Zelda missed the tumbler, sloshing the golden-brown liquid all over her hand. Cursing, she slammed the glass back down on the counter, and it was then that she received an uncomfortable flash of a memory: her father, piss-drunk and mean as a snake, spitting insults at her as she refilled his glass.

 _“Perhaps you are my daughter after all,”_ a cruel, ghoulish voice whispered in her ear.

Startled, Zelda whipped around, expecting to see her father’s ghost risen from his grave, but once again, it must be understood—there was not a single soul at the Spellman mortuary, living or dead, besides that of Zelda Fiona Spellman.

Zelda’s breaths came in huge, shuddering gasps as she pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. Ever since the Caligari spell, she’d been having the most hideous hallucinations. Was it possible she was truly losing her mind?

* * *

Mary Wardwell couldn’t _believe_ the gall of that—that—charlatan woman who’d read her palms. What business of hers was it that she and Adam had never… never come together in… _that_ way? And what on earth had she meant by saying Mary was present for Adam’s death? Surely, she’d remember _that_ , if nothing else?

Deciding she needed something stronger than chamomile tea to calm her shattered nerves, Mary hung up her yellow coat and made her way directly to the seldom-opened liquor cabinet. She’d never been much of a drinker herself, but before his untimely death, her father had apparently stocked up prior to the official Prohibition laws, terrified that he’d never be able to legally buy alcohol again.

Mary rarely thought of her father—he’d died so long ago, and she’d hardly known him when he was alive—but she knew he would’ve hated the way her grandparents were so fanatical about their house being a “dry” one after his passing. There’d been a lock on the liquor cabinet for as long as Mary had been alive—at least that was how it felt to Mary as a teenager—which only made her more curious as to why her grandparents wouldn’t have just poured it all down the drain.

Never mind that now. Her grandparents were long since dead and buried—god rest their souls. She could have a glass of wine if she wanted one without an ounce of guilt.

Resolved to open what was sure to be a delectable vintage red wine, Mary opened the cabinet, only to gasp in surprise.

_What in heaven?_

Where once there had been nearly an entire cabinet of decades-old liquor and wine she doubted she’d ever make her way through herself, there was now a lone bottle of gin.

Mary stumbled back and away, her hand covering her mouth. Was this yet another failing of her memory? Had she consumed so much liquor that she’d erased entire months of her life? Was her memory loss a result of being black-out drunk? Surely not…?

Was this why she couldn’t remember her fiancé’s death? Had she coped with it by drowning herself in alcohol? The doctors had said that in the absence of a physical explanation, there must be a psychological one. She’d been through so many tests—been poked and prodded and humiliated by their history taking—and yet, she’d still left their offices no closer to the truth.

Mary rushed to the tea kettle to fill it with water. She needed to get her head on straight. If only she could calm her racing heart…

Suddenly, there was a knock at her door. Confused and slightly panicked, having thought that everyone in town would be at the carnival, Mary set the water to boil before walking to the door.

* * *

Zelda didn’t know how she had come to be standing in front of Mary Wardwell’s cottage, but she was certain she hadn’t driven there, if the fact that she was swaying where she stood was any indication. She remembered her thoughts drifting to the schoolmarm, and how Sabrina had mentioned something about her growing far too interested in hellscapes, but she had no idea how that drunken thought had led to a drunken transportation spell.

The ground tilted alarmingly beneath Zelda’s feet, which expedited her decision to knock on the Wardwell woman’s door regardless of how temporarily insane she must’ve been to come there unannounced. She briefly entertained the thought of transferring back to the mortuary, but in her state, it was amazing she’d even made it to the cottage in one piece.

The first knock went unanswered for quite some time. Zelda supposed she should’ve known that even a spinster schoolmarm would be at the opening of the carnival tonight—but she stopped that thought immediately in its tracks, remembering just how much it had stung to hear Hilda call her a “loveless spinster hag of a sister.”

Eventually, the door opened to reveal Mary Wardwell, bespectacled and clearly returned back to her meek personality.

“May I… help you?”

Zelda closed her eyes against the memory of saying much the same phrase when Lilith had first wandered into the mortuary—up to no good, no doubt.

“I…” Zelda began, her mind racing to come up with an explanation for why she would ever darken a complete stranger’s doorstep at this time of night.

“You’re… one of Sabrina’s aunts, aren't you?” said Mary, her eyes going wide with recognition. “Miss Spellman… pardon me, is it still Miss?”

Mary’s eyes drifted down to Zelda’s left hand, which was conspicuously bare of a wedding ring. Her fist clenched in response to the question. “Yes. It is.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” said Mary, making an effort to sound polite even as she failed to welcome the guest in.

The earth shifted again—at least, that was how it felt to Zelda, with her head swimming—and she was just about to make up some terribly insipid lie when a tea kettle shrieked its announcement that the tea was boiled.

“Heavens! I forgot all about my tea. Would you like to come in?” said Mary, leaving the door open as she rushed out of sight, presumably towards the kettle.

Zelda paused at the open door, suddenly sobered by the idea of crossing the threshold into the mortal’s cottage. In the end, it was the worry that it would be even more suspicious to _leave_ than it would be to stay that made her decision.

Stepping into the cottage felt like stepping into a different time. Zelda could appreciate that, because she’d lived through so many decades of starkly different tastes in interior design. Her eyes flitted across the living room, grateful for the fire roaring in the hearth. Zelda was suddenly unseasonably cold—though she suspected that had more to do with the cross hanging over the mantle.

“I didn’t want to be rude, so I brought you some tea. Though, I realize now that I should’ve asked you if you wanted any first…” said Mary, setting down the tea tray on the coffee table.

Zelda had no objections to tea, as her head was still decidedly swimmy from the alcohol. She wondered if her waning witch abilities had affected her tolerance, or if she’d just drank so much in her self-pity that she’d bypassed the usual amount she could handle.

“Thank you. I hope I’m not imposing too terribly…” said Zelda, taking a seat when Mary gestured to an armchair.

“Not at all,” said Mary, lifting her own tea. “It’s nice to have company. Even if it is… unexpected.”

“I apologize. I should’ve… phoned…” said Zelda, feeling more and more foolish by the moment.

“No, I mean it when I say it’s nice of you to come,” said Mary, trying to offer her unlikely companion a smile that reached her eyes. “I had rather an eventful day, if truth be told, and I welcome the distraction.”

These words washed over Zelda slowly, like a gentle tide turned strong. “What? Did something… _unusual…_ happen?”

At that, Mary took a rather too-large and too-quick sip of tea. As she sputtered, Zelda offered her a handkerchief. Mary thought it a dear gesture while she dabbed at her mouth, as disposable tissues had been around for decades. Zelda even went so far as to wave it off when Mary went to return it, implying she was meant to keep the embroidered piece of silk.

“I went to the carnival… on my own. I had a palm reading,” said Mary, running her fingers over the handkerchief, treasuring the softness of the silk.

Zelda carefully replaced her tea on the saucer. “Oh?”

“The…woman… who read my palms said some disconcerting things.”

“Like what?” said Zelda, aware she might be pressing too hard, but she was still significantly buzzed, if not as drunk as she was when she apparently decided it was a good idea to transport herself to Mary’s doorstep.

“That… I was there when my fiancé died.”

Zelda heard a roaring in her ears. Her body felt hot, then cold, in rapid succession. She neglected to respond, worried any insistence to the contrary might call attention to the truth rather than dismiss it.

“Was I?” asked Mary, her voice harder than ever before.

Zelda’s mouth went dry. She took up her tea, hoping to delay the need to respond.

“You run the mortuary, don’t you? You would know if I was there for his funeral,” Mary clarified, though she seemed to sense that Zelda was taken aback by this question.

“I do.”

Time stretched and snapped and stretched again between them.

“Then, I’ll ask a second time: was I there when Adam Masters, my fiancé, died?”

Mary seemed to go through all five stages grief at once. Zelda couldn’t bear it.

“Yes.”

Mary sucked in a sharp breath.

“…but it wasn’t truly you.”

There. The truth was out in the open.

“What do you mean?”

There was hope in Mary Wardwell’s eyes, rather than fear. It disconcerted Zelda to no end, but she figured she could always wipe Mary’s memory if the truth didn’t go down so well.

“I know this is hard to hear. I wouldn’t believe it myself, if someone told me. But… you’re aware of Greendale’s history of witchcraft?”

“Yes, of course!” said Mary, her eyes alight with hope and delight, as if Zelda had just handed her the keys to the city, rather than a lock within yet another lock.

“Well—and I don’t want you to panic, now. I’m not fit to handle a hysterical person—but… there was a witch in Greendale, you see. The _first_ witch,” Zelda clarified, as if it would make the blow softer. “She… she put you to sleep, and then she cast a spell, so that the people of Greendale would believe she was you.”

There was an awkward silence, in which neither woman seemed to breathe, and Zelda wondered if she would be thrown out, arrested, or shot—not necessarily in that order. She cursed herself for her honesty, as she wasn’t sure if she could successfully perform a memory charm at the moment…

“That explains… so much,” Mary breathed.

Zelda wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Could Mary really accept the half-lie so easily?

“I’m sorry… I’m not sure you heard me. A witch…” Zelda refused to say “killed,” and so followed this with: “ _cursed_ you… and then took your place at Baxter High.”

“Yes, of course!” Mary’s eyes were practically sparkling. “That would explain it! I’ve always known there were witches here in Greendale—and now I have proof!”

Zelda’s heart leapt into her chest. Perhaps she would need to find some other means to make Mary forget, if she couldn’t summon up the magic…

“May I be excused?” said Zelda, quite out of the blue, “I’m afraid I’m in need of a powder room.”

“Of course!” said Mary, her face far brighter than Zelda would ever expect it to be, after the confession she’d made.

Mary directed her to the bathroom, which happened to be adjacent to Mary’s bedroom. Zelda began to panic, as she was just sober enough to understand that she might’ve made a perilous mistake. She paced around the bathroom, trying to think of a spell simple yet harmless enough to cast on Mary to make her forget what had been said this evening.

With a shaking hand, Zelda took out her lipstick. In a pained whisper, she waved her hand over the lipstick and said, “Bless your mind, bless your heart, let these painful thoughts depart,” before applying it to her lips.

If she couldn’t cast a spell on the woman herself… she’d just have to get creative. Hopefully Mary Wardwell was… _agreeable_ to other methods of getting to know one another besides talking.


End file.
